Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank Ms. Big Canoe and Ms. Tallon Franklin for being here today.
Your testimony is important. This matter is very concerning. It is valuable to have the perspective of people on the inside and people on the ground.
I will direct my next question to Ms. Franklin.
Ms. Franklin, as I understand it, you are a speaker and you deal a lot with the issue of human trafficking awareness.
One of the witnesses in the previous panel talked about criminal sanctions. Indeed, the Criminal Code has penalties for people who are accused of human trafficking. I know there are other penalties in several other laws, including the one we're looking at now. I find the problem so serious that I wonder if there is anything else we can do but apply criminal sanctions.
What else can we do?
It appears unacceptable to me that any individual, male or female, would think of buying a child. It's unthinkable. The witness was telling us that the culture had to change. I find it hard to believe that this type of behaviour is part of our culture. Certain things must surely be changed, but I cannot believe that it is an accepted part of our culture, here in Quebec and in Canada, to buy human beings to satisfy one's own pleasure. Maybe I'm naive, but I can't understand that.
I'd like to hear your thoughts on raising awareness about human trafficking. Someone was talking about changing the culture. I have a bit of difficulty with that. I would like you to tell us a more about that.
What can we do to stop the behaviour in question, apart from threatening jail time?